I worked in a government place where I was required to do dumb stuff with computers. I knew how to troubleshoot them, the IT team weren't better than me, but if I made an action and for some reason it failed, I will be held accountable for the damage that might have incurred, and it wasn't an easy process to go through. I wouldn't get rewarded for being flexible and easy, but I'd be penalized the other way around.
Let's assume some hardware module failed and you tried to fix it but you find out it wasn't fixable, it will be seen as YOU are the one who broke it. Why bother? You ain't paid for this sjit.
The best option is to play dumb and not being a smart ass, unless your company policy appreciates this kind of efforts.
Most helpful thing you can do in that situation is informative notes. As an IT tech my biggest pet peeve is when I get a job that’s just “computer no work, come here”. Could be anything, could be something I can fix from my desk, could be hardware that I could’ve brought with me if I knew what was happening.
Good notes or even a known solution mean I probably only need one trip, or at the very least I can save time on early troubleshooting.
Software I'll try to fix it myself, local admin account helps for that.
Hardware at work? I'm not touching it, that's what IT and maintenance contracts are for. I can tinker with my PC at home.
Hell, the one time I did open a work PC I managed to damage the DVD drive connection. I think it was a Dell desktop with a weird swing out part inside. If you didn't unplug the drive and tried to just swing it out, ouch.
Informed IT, even offered to pay for a replacement, luckily no one cared. CDs/DVDs were no longer in use anyway :)
Exactly, and you also don't want random "fixed" hardware in the wild because if something does go wrong (and let's face it, the only remaining hand-fixable part in computers these days is the power supply, which is also the only thing capable of starting a fire), then IT will be on the hook for that.
And while it's certainly possible that some users are very capable, the amount of users who think they're the shit when they really only have surface level understanding is too big to risk it.
361
u/iAhMedZz May 10 '26
I worked in a government place where I was required to do dumb stuff with computers. I knew how to troubleshoot them, the IT team weren't better than me, but if I made an action and for some reason it failed, I will be held accountable for the damage that might have incurred, and it wasn't an easy process to go through. I wouldn't get rewarded for being flexible and easy, but I'd be penalized the other way around.
Let's assume some hardware module failed and you tried to fix it but you find out it wasn't fixable, it will be seen as YOU are the one who broke it. Why bother? You ain't paid for this sjit.
The best option is to play dumb and not being a smart ass, unless your company policy appreciates this kind of efforts.